Reacting to the incident, Igini said that the heinous act would not deter the commission from carrying out its duties, as most of the sensitive materials for the conduct of the elections were still intact.

The REC, who went on on-the-spot assessment of the incident, was quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) as saying: “there is no going back on the March 9 elections in Akwa Ibom.

“We have been able to order several cards readers from the neighbouring states and we are presently configuring them in readiness for the elections,” he said.

The Electoral Officer (EO) for Ibesikpo/Asutan, Mr Victor Inyang, said that the polls would go on as planned because no ballot paper was destroyed by the fire.

“They thought the election materials were kept in the store,” he added.

The incident, he reiterated, would not deter the conduct of the polls in all the 177 polling units in Ibesikpo Asutan as other sensitive and non-sensitive materials other than the card readers were not affected by the inferno.